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Deep-sea bugs produce super sunscreen

By Jon Copley

Heat-loving bacteria from deep-sea vents could soon be protecting your skin from the ravages of the summer sun.

Using bacteria that have been harvested from the hydrothermal vents, a French cosmetics company has developed a “smart” ingredient for sun lotions that increases skin protection as the temperature rises.

Few organisms can survive at the high temperatures and pressures that are found in hydrothermal vents, yet they remain home to myriads of microbes. Among these is Thermus thermophilus, a bacterium that thrives at around 75 °C.

Now cosmetics company Sederma of Le Perray-en-Yvelines near Paris hopes to use T. thermophilus to make a range of skincare products, using bugs gathered from vents two kilometres down on the bottom of the Pacific’s Gulf of California.

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Protein cocktail

The ingredient that Sederma will put into its products is produced through a fermentation process using T. thermophilus, but since the process is subject to a patent application, the company will not reveal what else gets thrown into the pot.

However, project member Olga Gracioso claims the result is “a cocktail of proteins” including enzymes that are particularly effective at mopping up a variety of highly reactive chemical complexes called free radicals, such as negatively charged superoxide anions (O2–). These highly reactive chemicals are produced by exposure to ultraviolet light and are known to be involved in reactions that damage the skin.

At deep-sea vents, sulphide gushes out and mixes with oxygenated seawater, creating free radicals. So it is perhaps no surprise that the microbial denizens of vents have effective ways of dealing with these highly reactive complexes. But unlike normal enzymes, those from deep-sea vent microbes often work well at higher temperatures.

Triple strength

Sederma says its new ingredient can mop up hydrogen peroxide three times as effectively at 40 °C as at 25 °C. So it hopes that over the next few years, cosmetics manufacturers will use its ingredient to make skincare products whose efficacy increases with temperature, says Gracioso.

The product seems to be particularly effective at preventing ultraviolet damage to fibroblasts – the cells that make the collagen and elastin proteins that keep skin durable. Gracioso speculates that it may protect fibroblasts by preventing a process called lipoperoxidation, in which UV rays damage the phospholipid molecules that form cell membranes.

“It is possibly better than vitamin E, which is used in many cosmetic preparations for a similar effect,” she told New Scientist.

The company obtained the bacteria under a cooperative agreement with CNRS, the French national research agency, which granted it rights to exploit certain deep-ocean bacterial strains collected on various expeditions.